Construction of a Novel DNA Vaccine Candidate encoding LmSTI1-PpSP42 Fusion Protein from Leishmania major and Phlebotomus papatasi Against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

Background: cutaneous leishmaniasis (cl) is a serious public health problem in many tropical countries. the infection is caused by a protozoan parasite of leishmania genus transmitted by phlebotominae sandflies. in the present study, we constructed a eukaryotic expression vector to produce a fusion protein containing lmsti1 from leishmania major (l. major) and ppsp42 from phlebotomus papatasi (ph. papatasi). in future studies we will test this construct as a dna vaccine against zoonotic cl. methods: the nucleotide sequences encoding the lmsti1 protein and a fragment encoding 79% of ppsp42 were amplified using l. major and ph. papatasi genomic dna, respectively. the amplicons were cloned into the pcdna3.1(+) eukaryotic expression vector. the recombinant plasmid pcdna-lmsti1pp42 was propagated in escherichia coli (e. coli) and used to transfect hek-293t cells. the expressed fusion protein was analyzed by western blotting using anti-lmsti1 mouse serum. results: sequences encoding lmsti1 and partial ppsp42 were cloned into pcdna3.1(+). production of the recombinant lmsti1pp42 fusion protein was confirmed by western blotting. conclusions: an lmsti1pp42 fusion protein was expressed in hek-293t cells. this construct may be an effective dna vaccine against cl.